early manhood, had been to him a sort of
ideal and inspiration. How he had loved and admired him, yet never with
a touch of jealousy! And Francis, whose letter lay open by him on the
table, lay dead on the battlefields of France. There was the envelope,
with the red square mark of the censor upon it, and the sheet with its
gay scrawl in pencil, asking for proper cigarettes. And, with a pang
of remorse, all the more vivid because it concerned so trivial a thing,
Michael recollected that he had not sent them. He had meant to do so
yesterday afternoon but something had put it out of his head. Never
again would Francis ask him to send out cigarettes. Michael laid his
head on his arms, so that his face was close to that pencilled note, and
the relief of tears came to him.

Soon he raised himself again, not ashamed of his sorrow, but somehow
ashamed of the black hate that before had filled him. That was gone for
the present, anyhow, and Michael was glad to find it vanished. Instead
there was an aching pity, not for Francis alone nor for himself, but for
all those concerned in this hideous business. A hundred and a thousand
homes, thrown suddenly to-day into mourning, were there: no doubt there
were houses in that Bavarian village in the pine woods above which he
and Hermann had spent the day when there was no opera at Baireuth where
a son or a brother or a father were mourned, and in the kinship of
sorrow he found himself at peace with all who had suffered loss, with
all who were living through days of deadly suspense. There was nothing
effeminate or sentimental about it; he had never been manlier than in
this moment when he claimed his right to be one with them. It was right
to pause like this, with his hand clasped in the hands of friends and
foes alike. But without disowning that, he knew that Francis's death,
which had brought that home to him, had made him eager also for his own
turn to come, when he would go out to help in the grim work that lay in
front of him. He was perfectly ready to die if necessary, and if not, to
kill as many Germans as possible. And somehow the two aspects of it
all, the pity and the desire to kill, existed side by side, neither
overlapping nor contradicting one another.

His servant came into the room with a pencilled note, which he opened.
It was from Sylvia.

"Oh, Michael, I have just called and am waiting to know if you will see
me. I have seen the news, and I want to tell you how sorry